Number 142 - March of 2010

Sieso de Huesca town

Sieso
de Huesca for the rest and tranquility.

A place of the county of Huesca,
belonging to the municipality of Casbas. It has about 63 inhabitants.
Altitude: 582 meters on the sea level. It's from Huesca 30
kilometers. Gentile: siesino.
The place was simply denominated Sieso,
while it depended on the Huesca capital, as sidewalk. Then, when getting
its municipal independence, in 1834, it took like last name this that
certainly already came it inherited and passed to call itself Sieso
of Huesca. It maintained own City council up to 1960-1970 in that
it united to Casbas.Sieso of Huesca is located next
to its access track, in the right margin of the Formiga river.
Two streets configure its urban structure, in land that begins already
to be broken, with the mountain of Guara to the bottom. The
place belonged to the monastery of Montearagón, for the king's
donation Pedro I made in 1099. Later on, in November of 1188,
Alfonso II of Aragon gave Sieso to the abbess of Casbas
that would already show the dominion during centuries. April of 1275,
8 Inés, the abbess, and Ato de Foces, named arbiters
to specifying the limits among Morrano, Yaso, Sieso and Castelnóu,
and August 19 of 1295 Jaime de Aragón exempted to the
monastery of Casbas of the seigniorage tax and other more in
its places, among those that figured the own Sieso.
The place had 21 homes at the end of
the XV century. By the middle of the XIX one, Madoz pointed
out 140 houses, 47 neighbors and 291 persons, and at the beginning
of 1900 it arrived to the 500 inhabitants.
Sieso is scarcely a main street, the
biggest street that crosses it in a longitudinal way, parallel to
the highway; the rest is narrow, short and traverse, serpentine, bent
streets, with typical corners that will behave, or to the field, or
to the great square of the Church.
The urban architecture shows us the
classic contrast among the restored houses and the few that have not
been it. There is prevalence of housings respectfully rehabilitated;
and some very old ones, as that of the Calle Estrecha, where
is the most veteran house in the town that assure me it dates of 1596,
and in that the restoration works have begun timidly. They count me
that Sieso has its origins in the XII century, although I suspect
that there were previous establishments.

The urban nucleus still gets rich with
buildings of the XVIth and XVIIth centuries, although most corresponds
to the XIXth. The current times have been good to introduce some reformations
and retouches more or less guessed right. The parochial church is
dedicated to San Martin and is of romanesque origin, with later
reformations. It is composed at the present time of three ships, the
central the covered by canyon vault, while in the lateral are of domes
and starry. The XIIth and XVIth centuries appear harmoniously combined.
Same happens with the bell tower that conserves its romanesque base,
while the chapitel is octogonal, of brick, faithful to the Mudejar
technique. The sacristy covers with vault of trough of the XVIII century.
The church is restored in its exterior, but tell me that there is
a lot to fixing in its interiors that the subsidies arrive with dropper,
although its aspect has improved very much.
A hermitage, that of Nuestra Señora
del Olivar conserves some Gothic vestiges. Sieso of Huesca celebrates its
patron parties November 11, in honor of San Martin that is
also holder of the church. On February 3 it likewise is honored
San Blas, and on eve night the traditional bonfires ignite still.

The lineage of the Sieso exists,
noble family native to the locality of his surname and placed in Saragossa
already documented from the beginning of the XVIIth century.